The advent of the Internet has resulted in an incredible amount of information accessible to any computing device connected to this vast global communication network. In addition to allowing access to this information, the Internet provides a means for communicating and conducting business from any location with a connected computer. The Internet does not have geographic boundaries and is not limited to a particular language or type of computer software/equipment. This allows users from all over the world to search, communicate and transact business.
The World Wide Web (abbreviated as “WWW” and often referred to as “the Web”) is a distributed, multimedia, hypertext system. It allows users access to information on the Internet using the HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) to transmit information, browsers to present this information to Web users who search or surf the Web and Web servers to retrieve the information and serve it to the browsers.
HTTP is one of the three components of the Web protocol and is a set of rules and parameters for computers to communicate over the Web. The HyperText Markup Language (HTML) and Universal Resource Locators (URL's) are the other two components of the original Web protocol. HTTP defines how information should be formatted and transmitted and also describes how browsers and Web servers communicate between one another. The HTTP standard continues to evolve and offer new capabilities in information exchange over the Web.
Information is transferred over the Web in the form of Web documents (also referred to as “Web resources” or “Web pages”). A Web page is a document created using the HyperText Markup Language (HTML) and has a unique address on the Web referenced by its URL. Web pages often contain hypertext or hyperlinks that provides a user with the ability to click on the hyperlinked text or graphics and immediately be transferred to the unique destination associated with the hyperlink. Web pages may contain multimedia elements such as text, sound, graphics and videos. While HTML is the original markup language in the Web protocol that defines the Web, other markup languages have been and are being developed for communicating over the Web. HTML is thus an evolving computer language describing how Web pages should be formatted and displayed on a user's screen.
A URL is a unique address for a specific resource or destination on the Internet and consists of the name of the protocol used to retrieve a document and the address of the computer or computers containing the Web page. It may also contain the name of a Web document itself.
Browsers, such as Microsoft Internet Explorer™ and Netscape Navigator™, are referred to as Web clients and communicate with Web servers via HTTP to request Web documents from the Web, format received Web pages and ultimately display them to the Internet users on their computer screen.
Web servers are computers running Web server programs, which handle requests from users on the Web to retrieve information referenced at a specific URL on the Web. After receiving the request, the Web server returns HTML formatted Web documents back to the requester.
Web pages may contain HyperText URL links, or hyperlinks, to other Web pages or may themselves be presented to the user in a form of specially formatted text or graphics. When a user clicks on a hyperlink, a browser immediately requests and displays the Web page referenced in the link. This process is commonly known as hyperlinking.
One or more Web pages located in the same address on the Internet constitute a Web site. A main Web page of a Web site is typically referred to as the home page and can be configured to be accessed without specific mention of the full file name. For example, the Web site for IBM™ has the home page address of http://www.ibm.com. The home page address actually includes a specific file name such as index.html but, as in IBM's case, when a standard default name is set up, users do not have to enter the full file name. Web sites are owned and maintained by individuals, companies or organizations.
With a wealth of information available on the Internet opportunities for transacting business have opened up and continue to grow. Increasing numbers of Internet users have Web sites where information, products and services are searched for, bought and sold. The vastness of the information available on the Web has made it necessary to find ways of allowing Web users (Web surfers) to find Web sites that may be of interest to them.
Search engines, directories, portals and other resources are examples of Web sites created to assist Internet users in locating desired information on the Web. Such resources search for and collect links to Web sites and then store those links based on sets of keywords that may be relevant to the Web sites. One of the ways Web users may locate a needed Web site is by conducting a search on one of these search resources. A search is conducted by entering keywords through a search engines' or directories' Web site, obtaining a list of links to the relevant Web pages that were found in the keyword search, selecting a link by clicking on any of the links, and being redirected to a Web site whose link was clicked. A Web user may also navigate directly to a desired Web page, without the use of a search resource, by typing a URL into the address field of a browser.
The process of a Web user accessing a Web site is referred to as a “Web site visit.” The result of one or more Web users visiting a Web site by clicking a link on another Web site is user traffic between the Web sites. A high number of distinct Web users navigating from one Web site to another is referred to as “high user traffic.”
While some Web users visit or browse Web sites merely looking for information, some Web users visiting a Web site of an online company may choose to conduct business with that Web site. Generally, online businesses are interested in obtaining high user traffic because it is often believed that higher user traffic leads to higher sales and increased revenues.
Online companies that, by virtue of their business model, encourage Web users to navigate from their Web site(s) to other Web sites are referred to as “traffic producers.” Online companies that seek to attract Web users are called “traffic consumers.” An online book store is an example of a traffic consumer because it seeks to attract Web users. An Internet directory is an example of a traffic producer, because its business is to redirect Web site visitors to other Web sites such as an online bookstore. Millions of Web sites produce and/or consume user traffic every day.
FIG. 2 illustrates a typical Web user traffic flow environment with traffic consumers 210 receiving user traffic 214 from traffic producers 212. Traffic consumers 210 are the business Web sites of specific businesses promoting and/or selling products and/or services over the Internet. Examples of traffic consumers 210 illustrated in FIG. 2 are a gift Web site, an insurance reseller Web site and an online bookstore Web site. This is meant to be exemplary and not exhaustive of the many traffic consumers that exist on the Internet Web.
Traffic producer Web sites 212 are search engines, search portals, Internet directories or other Web sites from which user traffic is directed to a traffic consumer 210. Some traffic producers 212 actually play a dual role by attracting Web users 214 through a general or industry specific portal and then redirecting those same Web users 214 to other traffic producers 212 with more specific content. In that scenario, the traffic producer 212 with more specific content becomes a traffic consumer before switching its role to a traffic producer. Similarly, some traffic consumers 210 play a dual role of receiving traffic, but also redirecting user traffic to other traffic consumers 210.
Traffic consumers use various advertising techniques to obtain user traffic. Web-based advertisements come in various forms and include as examples, banners, pop-ups, paid references/listings and prominent placements on the traffic producers Web sites. Links to the traffic consumer that placed the advertisement are typically embedded in the advertisements. Web users are redirected to the traffic consumer Web site after clicking on an advertisement. Traffic consumers use various payment techniques to compensate traffic producers for placement of the advertisements and use of their Web site resources. Featuring of advertisements is one of the common ways for traffic producers to earn revenue. Traffic consumers are interested in having their advertisement appear on multiple traffic producers' Web sites to increase their exposure to Web users.
One method of Internet advertising for traffic consumers is the Pay Per Click (PPC) business model. In this model, a traffic consumer creates an advertising listing consisting of a title, description, link, and set of keywords corresponding to its Web site's focus. The traffic consumer submits the listing to the PPC search engine and selects a bid amount for each keyword. The PPC search engine features the listing for that traffic consumer along with the listings of other traffic consumers in the order of the bid amount each has selected in the results Web page when Web user searches for the bidded keyword. The higher the bid, the better the placement position of the traffic consumer's hyperlinked listing compared to the other listings with the same keywords. A Web user may click on any of the displayed listings and would get redirected to the Web site of the appropriate traffic consumer. Once a Web user clicks on a listing, the amount equal to the bidded amount for the keyword is deducted from traffic consumer's account and applied to the PPC search engine account. PPC search engines may also feature a traffic consumer's listings on the sites of its affiliate traffic producers producing even greater exposure for the traffic consumer. An example of a PPC business model is described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,269,361 to Davis, et al.
For advertising models that generate revenue for the traffic producer based on the number of users that select the advertisement, there is a clear monetary benefit for traffic producers to send as much user traffic as possible to traffic consumers. For this reason, some traffic producers may use dishonest means to generate user traffic from the traffic producer's Web site to the traffic consumer's Web site. For example, a traffic producer may offer a reward to a Web user for clicking on a traffic consumer's listing repeatedly, initiate a Web site visit on the Web users' behalf or even use a computer program to simulate Web users clicking on the traffic consumer's listing. While there is no business benefit to this type of incentified and fictitious user traffic, advertising fees would still be due from the traffic consumer. Thus, there is no guarantee that each unique Web site visit from a traffic producer will deliver the same business value to the traffic consumer. In general, each traffic producer generates user traffic of different quality from the perspective of the traffic consumer.
There exist a number of software systems, which try to measure the business value of the user traffic by comparing the amount of new business to the amount invested. This measurement is also known as Return on Investment (ROI) figure. Web users are tracked throughout their visit on the traffic consumer's Web site and the amount of money spent by them to purchase products or services is correlated to the amount spent to get them to visit the Web site.
While useful in some industries, this measurement does not have much value in other industries with long selling cycles such as the automotive industry. Web users may visit a traffic consumer's Web site as a result of advertising but may come back months later to actually make a purchase. It would be nearly impossible to correlate them to the original visitors who came months earlier. Traffic consumers using ROI analysis may spend months analyzing their Web site visitors without arriving at a clear understanding of which traffic producers have been sending them the best user traffic. Another shortcoming of ROI analysis is that it is focused on analyzing user behavior on the traffic consumer's Web site and cannot address the issue of evaluating the user online activity pattern on the traffic producer's Web sites.
Even though ROI and other measurements are useful for some online businesses, advanced programming capabilities or third party analytical software as well as long data collection periods are necessary to collect enough data for analysis to be successful. Many traffic consumers may not have the benefit of both.
No known system or method exists to assist a traffic consumer in quantifying the quality of user traffic received from a specific traffic producer. Merely knowing from which site user traffic is generated does not provide information regarding the quality of that traffic to a business-it does not quantify the likelihood that the user traffic is human generated, comes from Web users interested in the traffic consumer's wares and is relevant to the traffic consumer's line of business. With this user traffic quality information currently lacking in existing systems, a traffic consumer does not have the ability to adequately assess where to advertise, the type of advertising to place and how much to pay for the advertising.